1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device, method, program, and system for facilitating easy and efficient use of content via a predetermined network such as a local area network (LAN).
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, the number of consumer electronic devices complying with guidelines or standards for providing network connection between different electronic devices in homes, such as the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), has tended to significantly increase.
In use cases of network-connected electronic devices, for example, in DLNA, content and content attribute information are transmitted between two or three electronic devices. Thus, content existing in a certain electronic device, such as still image data, moving image data, and music data, can be transferred to another electronic device and can be played back or stored.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-301777 discloses a technique for allowing continuous playback of same content from a certain device to another device with a simple user operation. The technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-301777 will now be specifically described.
Content A is being played back on a hard disk drive (HDD) recorder. When the playback of the content A is interrupted, playback interruption information regarding the content A is sent to a mobile terminal and is held in the mobile terminal.
A user who is moving while carrying the mobile terminal uses the mobile terminal to request a network audio-visual (AV) player at the destination to play back the interrupted content A.
Then, the network AV player requests the HDD recorder to provide the content A so that the network AV player can play back the content A provided from the HDD recorder.
In the technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-301777, therefore, the intervention of a mobile terminal allows easy and appropriate transfer of data between devices connected to a LAN, and also allows flexible use of content via the LAN.